


Devotion

by thedevilchicken



Category: Rome (TV 2005)
Genre: Blindfolds, Coercion, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Restraints, Wine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-23 16:18:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9665201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: Vorenus is a loyal man. Staying with Antony in Egypt proves it.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [motetus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/motetus/gifts).



Vorenus is a loyal man. 

He's loyal to his friends, though sometimes when he looks at Titus Pullo he thinks perhaps he should begin to choose his friends more wisely. He was loyal to his wife, though when he thinks of her at night when he knows he should be sleeping, he isn't sure his loyalty could have ever meant much good for either him or her. He's loyal to his children, or he would be if they would just let him be. He's loyal to his nation, as he's proven through his many long years of bloody service. And he's loyal to his commander, in whose name he's done such terrible things without a second thought and often, mostly, without a moment of regret. 

Vorenus is a loyal man. But sometimes, even he begins to think that there are things he shouldn't do for loyalty. 

"Don't you ever relax?" General Antony asks. He has other grander titles now, of course, but to Vorenus he has always been first and foremost that, and he is that even now, three-quarters drunk from wine. 

"Not often, Sir," Vorenus stiffly replies. 

"Well, I think now might just be the time, Vorenus. Wouldn't you agree?"

Vorenus doesn't agree, however, and he can't make himself believe he does and so he can't make himself say he does. He tries not to show it on his face but he's no actor, he's no ready kind of politician, and so when Antony tuts he knows he's failed again to be convincing. It's a familiar outcome.

"I see," Antony says. "I should order you to relax. What do you think to that?"

He thinks orders are what's got him where he is because his life's been nothing but a series of them from the start. He thinks orders and the loyalty that makes him follow them brought him to Egypt as much as any other inducement might have done. He thinks orders are the reason why his hands are bound to the bed above his head and why he closed his eyes to let Mark Antony blindfold him with his own neckcloth that he unknotted from around his throat himself and handed to him when he asked, though everything had told him to say no and mean it. 

"I think I'd try my best, Sir," Vorenus says, and Antony sighs at his response. It's not what he wants to hear, but it's at least the truth. Vorenus is perhaps the last one there who'll tell him it. 

"Jupiter's cock, man, you're impossible," Antony replies, and he's coming closer, or so says the sound of bare feet on the floor tiles. "What am I going to do with you?"

"I think we both know the answer to that, Sir," Vorenus says, dry-mouthed and apprehensive. 

Antony laughs, sounding brighter than he has in days. "Yes," he says, as the bed dips with his weight. "I suppose we do."

It would be easy to say that these things aren't done in Rome, but Vorenus knows they are - they like to think that it's all slaves or foreigners, but sometimes it's soldiers or senators and Vorenus won't deny he knows that. It would be easier still to blame the flagon of wine that's never far from Antony's reach because the blame does lie there at least in part, or to blame Egypt or the queen, but Vorenus has never honestly known how to take the easy option rather than the right one that he's duty-bound to take. When Mark Antony puts his hands on him, when he bends his head and puts his mouth on him, it's because he wants to. There doesn't need to be another reason.

Antony presses his mouth to Vorenus's throat. Antony's hand strays over Vorenus's bare belly and his stomach drops. He can feel the heavy rings on Antony's fingers as they brush against his skin and he can feel the heat of Antony's wine-drenched breath even over the cloying heat of the room and the palace and the country itself. He can feel the scrape of Antony's teeth, the rasp of Antony's stubble against his jaw, the calluses of Antony's sword-worn fingers against the length of his stirring cock. He takes a sharp breath and he shudders it out and Antony chuckles. It's a warm sound, like it used to be, before they ever came to this place. Behind his neckcloth blindfold, if he let himself, Vorenus could almost believe that nothing has changed.

Everything has changed. Antony sucks at Vorenus's neck as he strokes his cock and Vorenus knows better than to pretend to himself that it's anybody else but who it is. Antony's cock pushes hard at his hip and he groans with it, the sound utterly him, so pretending would be useless even if he felt he should. Vorenus's hips twitch into Antony's touch against his will and he doesn't try to stop himself but Antony does it slowly, he teases him, murmurs to him by his ear all kinds of things Vorenus knows he could never repeat out loud to anyone. It's as heady as the wine that Antony drinks and he can taste on him. It's as heady as Queen Cleopatra's pipe smoke. Mark Antony's reputation is well-deserved, but he doesn't let him finish.

Vorenus takes an unsteady breath and ha pulls at his restraints and Antony moves down lower. Antony's tongue darts out to Vorenus's cock and he hates it, but he doesn't, but he does. His muscles are tight. His throat is tight. Antony's hands push at the insides of his thighs and Antony's mouth seals around his cock and Vorenus groans out loud, shocking himself with the sound of it, disgusting himself with the sound of it, but Antony doesn't let him finish. He rolls him onto his stomach instead, the cloth of the restraints twisting above his head to let him do so. 

Antony pulls up Vorenus's hips and nudges his knees apart just a fraction, not far at all. He pushes his own big cock in between Vorenus's thighs and rocks his hips and Vorenus hates it, he hates how exposed he is, arse in the air and cock dangling, how Antony's palms part his cheeks and one spit-slick thumb rubs at his hole and for a second he thinks Antony will penetrate him. He doesn't, except with the tip of his thumb, his free hand going down to stroke Vorenus's cock as he rubs his own between Vorenus's thighs. Vorenus buries his face in the mattress as his insides tighten, screws his eyes shut uselessly behind his blindfold, and Antony groans and comes, shoved up behind Vorenus's balls. Vorenus wishes he couldn't feel it. He can feel it, hot and wet and faintly revolting. It turns his stomach to know that if Antony had asked, perhaps not even ordered, he would have let him do it inside him. 

He doesn't let Vorenus come, not yet, though by rights it should be finished. Vorenus can hear Antony's breath as he pushes him down onto his back, can hear the creak of the bed as he straddles his thighs, can feel his hands spread out at his chest as Antony settles over him. Antony curses as he guides Vorenus's hard cock between his cheeks and settles back to take him in and Vorenus curses, too, by all the gods, with all the oaths he knows, and Antony chuckles at him breathlessly. 

"I didn't know you knew how to curse, Vorenus," Antony says, amused, but his voice is strained. 

"You're a good teacher, Sir," Vorenus says, unsteady, and Antony laughs again, louder, brighter. It's almost worth it, he thinks. Almost. 

Antony rides him, his arse tight around him, even hotter than the room, than the lamps, than the incense and the hot, dry air that makes him sweat uncomfortably. He pulls at the wrist restraints, digs his heels into the bed and bucks up against him and Antony says, _oh gods, Vorenus, do it just like that_. It's ridiculous. It's out of control. _He's_ out of control. And when he comes, when Mark Antony lets him come, when it shivers through him and bursts like the fucking sun has been burning there inside him, he's almost sure his strangled groan is loud enough to bring the queen's guards running. Mercifully, they seem to know better than to interrupt. They're left alone. He breathes because he can do nothing else. 

"You seem rather more relaxed now, Vorenus," Antony remarks, and Vorenus grimaces. He's right, of course. Vorenus hates that he is, but he won't deny it. 

"Yes, Sir," he says. "I'm more relaxed." 

"More than last time?"

Vorenus clenches his jaw. He nods. "More than last time, Sir," he says, because that's the truth he doesn't like to contemplate. He thinks the restraints might have helped because he doesn't want to touch him, but he does, but he doesn't. If he's restrained, it's not important he restrain himself.

Vorenus is a loyal man. He's loyal to his nation and his children and his friends. He's loyal to his commander, though he thinks that there are some things commanders should not demand of their men, not even once and definitely not more times than that. Not regularly. Not again and again. Not night after night, in the heat and the sweat of a bed he shares with a queen. He should never have asked. Perhaps he still respects Mark Antony, but it's more for what he was than what he is.

Vorenus is a loyal man but as he slips away once Antony is sleeping, as he lies awake in his own bed that night, he knows loyalty is not what keeps him there, nor money, nor his orders. What keeps him there is the clear ring of Mark Antony's voice. What keeps him is the firm feel of Mark Antony's hands on him once he's wiped the kohl from his eyes and he's more Roman again than he's Egyptian. 

Vorenus is a loyal man but what keeps him isn't loyalty. It's the things he's lost, and that he's still losing. 

It isn't loyalty. It's one more night of Mark Antony's half-drunk, wine-soaked mouth on his bare skin. 

It isn't. 

It _is_.


End file.
